Kalarippayattu - A Study

In the well-known Bhagavad
Gita section of India's Mahabharata epic, Krishna elaborates
a view of duty and action intended to convince Arjuna that, as
a member of the warrior caste (ksatriya), he must overcome all
his doubts and take up arms, even against his relatives. As anyone
familiar with either the Mahabharata or India's second great
epic, the Ramayana, knows, martial techniques have existed on
the South Asian subcontinent since antiquity. Both epics are
filled with scenes describing how the princely heroes obtain
and use their humanly or divinely acquired skills and powers
to defeat their enemies: by training in martial techniques under
the tutelage of great gurus like the brahmin master Drona, by
practicing austerities and meditation techniques which give the
martial master access to subtle powers to be used in combat,
and/or by receiving a gift or a boon of divine, magical powers
from a god. On the one hand, there is Bhima who depends on his
brute strength to crush his foes, while on the other, we find
the "unsurpassable"; Arjuna making use of his more subtle
accomplishments in single point focus or his powers acquired
through meditation.

Among practitioners and
teachers of kalarippayattu, the martial art of Kerala,southwestern
coastal India, some, like Higgins Masters of the P.B. Kalari
in Trissur, model their practice on Bhima, emphasizing kalarippayattu's
practical empty hand techniques of attack,defense, locks, and
throws. Others, like my first and most important teacher, Gurukkal*
Govindankutty Nayar of Thirovananthapuram's C.V.N. Kalari, with
whom I have studied since 1977, follow Arjuna and emphasize kalarippayattu
as an active, energetic means of disciplining and "harnessing"(yuj, the root of yoga) both one's body and one's mind, that
is, as a form of moving meditation. As comparative religions
scholar Mircea Eliade has explained, "One always finds a
form of yoga whenever there is a question of experiencing the
sacred or arriving at complete mastery of oneself . . ."
(Eliade, 1975:196).

*Gurukkal, the plural of Guru (Master),
is a title representing all past masters in the lineage of teaching.

Even though there has been
great interest in both yoga and Ayurveda (the Indian science
of health and well-being) in the West, little is known about
a number of Indian martial arts still practiced today which are
founded on a set of fundamental cultural assumptions about the
bodymind relation ship, health, and well-being that are similar
to the assumptions underlying yoga and Ayurveda. This essay is
an introduction to kalarippayattu-a martia/medical/meditation
discipline traditionally practiced in Kerala State, southwestern
coastal India, since at least the twelfth century A.D. and more
specifically is an introduction to the history and a few of the
assumptions about the body, mind, and practice shared with yoga
and Ayurveda and which inform the way in which some traditional
masters still teach kalarippayattu

Notes:- This is an abridged and edited version of an exhaustive,
scholarly essay by Dr Phillip B Zarrilli, PhD, based on his six
extended trips to Kerala, India, on extensive interviews with
over fifty masters and on fifteen years of training, practice
and teaching of the discipline. The most recent research trips
were made possible by a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship
(1993) and by an American Institute of Indian Studies and NEH Senior Research
Fellowship (1988-89).